


No Good Deed

by Miri Cleo (miri_cleo)



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Oblivious Stephen Strange, POV Stephen Strange, Stephen Strange Needs a Hug, cats are trouble but magic cats are TROUBLE, loki is the cat, the cat is loki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:15:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22270018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miri_cleo/pseuds/Miri%20Cleo
Summary: Cats had innate magic; most used a little of it on instinct. This cat began to readily portal through the house whenever it damn well felt like it.
Relationships: Loki/Stephen Strange
Comments: 10
Kudos: 148
Collections: MCU Space Ships 2019





	No Good Deed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Luthienberen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthienberen/gifts).



> Thank you for so many good prompts that ti was hard to settle on what to write. Ultimately, I'm a sucker for cats. 
> 
> Also, thanks to twtd11 and glassesofjustice for beta work on this. And thanks to my cats for being (mostly) willing character studies.

The cat appeared at the door one afternoon when Stephen was coming back from errands--the grocery store and the dry cleaners, to be precise. It didn't actually appear _at_ the door. It would have been easier if it had. I showed up at the corner, chewing at a broken claw, limping. It's fur was dull, dirty, marked at places where it had been ripped away. One of its ears was a bit torn, and its eyes were running. It was skinny too--not really a starving appearance, just...skinny. When he crouched down and called it softly, holding out his hand with his fingers crooked back, knuckles out for the cat to sniff, the cat glared at Stephen with eyes that were a luminous, deep green. 

It _did not_ want to be caught. In fact, it ripped the plastic around the dry cleaning as well as one of the shirts it was protecting. It also got Stephen squarely under the eye, but he managed to get it inside and confined to one of the smaller rooms downstairs. He told himself that he couldn't leave it like that. It was obviously hurting and generally unhealthy. Besides, it was a black cat that showed up half a block away from a powerful magical place. It was lucky. It was special--he just knew it. And those were easier reasons to take it in than to just admit that he was lonely. 

First, he took it to the vet. There were wonders Stephen could do with magic, but he couldn't just conjure up the rabies vaccine. And he would let the vet techs chance bathing the thing. Apparently, that had been a good decision. The cat returned to him looking like a wet rat--it hadn't let them dry it. Him. It was a him. And it was a very interesting him at that. It--he--the cat resisted Stephen's efforts to heal him through magic. Stephen hadn't been around a pet or any other kind of animal since he'd left home so many years before, so he wondered if there was some...innate sense that animals had about it. 

So, he did some reading. He was certain he hadn't conjured a familiar. If he had, this bedraggled creature certainly didn't speak to his own skill. Then again, the literature universally reflect that a cat chose its own company. And it was true that the cat stayed after that first trip to the vet was over. It stayed, but it was wary. It watched Stephen with that uncanny gaze, and it refused to be named. Anything he called it, it didn't come or acknowledge. But it was more than that. The names Stephen tried just didn't feel _right_. So, he gave up on that. 

At first, it wouldn't let him touch it. That was fine because Stephen didn't really want to. Even after its reluctant cleaning at the vet, the cat was still a mess. After a week or so, it looked better, its coat of short fur growing sleek and shiny. The limp remained, and Stephen still couldn't catch the damn thing with a spell. The cloak couldn't help, either. It loved the damn cat--let the cat sleep on it, claw at it, but wouldn't hold it still so Stephen could assess the damage and repair it. 

The cat started showing up when Stephen did his meditations. Stephen would sense its presence and open his eyes to find it staring at him. Being studied by a cat could be uncanny, but being studied by _this_ cat bordered on uncomfortable. It also began showing up in the library whenever he was there to study this or learn that. One morning when Stephen made a particularly volatile potion--or at least one that was supposed to be volatile--the cat swiped it off the table. And it actually had the gall to look reproachful of him. If he'd made it correctly, it would have exploded along with half the Sanctum. 

The first time the cat crawled onto his lap, Stephen was having a cup of coffee. It was his second cup, a rare indulgence that he refused to give up. The caffeine made the tremor in his hands more visible. That, in turn, made him think about his hands. His magic was innate now, even if he was always studying, always learning. He could control them at will, as a background process that required minimal energy and even less thought. But it was also will that kept him from steadying them all the time. He needed the reminder of his own hubris, of his own humanity. 

The cat did not curl up. It did not make itself comfortable. In fact, it made its presence known in that way only cats have where they make their body seem denser and heavier than it actually is. It distributed its weight so that Stephen felt the points of its little, oval feet on his thighs, and it stared up at him. The disdain--and Stephen knew he could be imagining this--seemed lessoned. Now the cat looked at him with cool curiosity. And when Stephen went to stroke its head, it didn't shy away or hiss or swipe at him. It also didn't push into his hand like the barn cats of his childhood; If anything, the cat _endured_ the touch. 

"Oh, well, thank you," Stephen said to it, his voice laced with sarcasm. "I guess your company is tolerable too."

In response the cat yawned and settled on his lap, leaving Stephen sedentary until it decided to move again. 

This became a regular occurrence--both the cat sitting in his lap, sometimes even purring, and Stephen talking to it. Talking to an animal wasn't strange for Stephen; what was unusual was that the cat actually seemed to listen, to understand, to _know_. Some witches had that type of relationship with their familiars, but this cat was not a familiar. 

The limp disappeared, but the cat still stayed. 

"You know, you're actually a pretty good specimen of cathood," Stephen offered one day as he was reorganizing a shelf in the library. Reorganizing the library was a task that was ongoing--seemingly forever--because Stephen and the former master of the Sanctum had different ideas of what constituted a functional cataloging system. 

The cat huffed in response. It actually looked affronted, which was fair. It was more than a pretty good specimen. It was actually one of the most beautiful black cats Stephen had ever seen. That sleek, shining fur was darker than midnight on a moonless evening, and it's legs were just a little too long for an ordinary house cat. That and the eyes made it seem wild in some way. 

And then there was the magic. It was so weak and bedraggled when Stephen had scooped it off of the street, it probably hadn't been able to use any. Cats had innate magic; most used a little of it on instinct. This cat began to readily portal through the house whenever it damn well felt like it. 

"That's unnerving," Stephen murmured when the cat showed up in the kitchen beside him one night when he couldn't sleep. The cat, it is worth noting, had begun to sleep on the pillow next to him. Apparently satin pillowcases--yes, Stephen was vain about his hair--were its preference. 

The cat swished its tail in response.

Stephen had been through every reference he had, every reference in the library at Kamar-Taj, but he couldn't find any reference to a magical creature, feline or otherwise, that fit this damn cat. For half a moment, he'd wondered if this was some shapeshifter cleverly infiltrating the Sanctum; however, it seemed like an awfully long game for someone to play for ends that weren't readily apparent. 

Plus, if he admitted it to himself, he _liked_ having the cat there. It made the place feel less like a psychotic museum. Still, to be sure, he tried slipping any number of reveal or forced change potions into the cat's water dish or his food, even his treats. It always knew, though, and never touched those offerings. 

Stephen, however, was not going to be outwitted by a cat. He was letting it sleep on his pillow every night, snuggle against him on the sofa, even groom his beard. And those intimacies were fine for a man and his cat, but they seemed too much for a man and an unknown magical being who may or may not be a shapeshifter.

He waited until the cat was ensconced firmly on his lap and half asleep before he announced that it was high time to get the cat neutered. Chasing a cat was never easy; chasing a cat who could portal was unthinkable. That's why Stephen shifted them into the mirror dimension as the cat was falling asleep. Now, they faced each other, the cat's tail moving back and forth angrily. 

"We could do this all day, but I want to know what you are...and I suspect you'd like to retain your manhood."

The cat's eyes flashed, but it was Stephen who stepped back in surprise when it exchanged its feline form. 

"Loki?" His throat was dry. The trickster was smiling, but his eyes--those same sharp green eyes--were unreadable. 

"I suppose you'd like me to thank you for shepherding me through my weakened state, Sorcerer. I must admit, I had begun to grow weary of your obtuseness of late."

"This is what I get for being a good Samaritan."

Loki cocked his head, and Stephen didn't know how he'd been so obnoxiously blind to what the cat was. There, standing before him, smirking, Loki had the same feline grace, the calculated and mildly disdainful gaze. When Loki stepped closer, Stephen stood his ground. "Your plan to force my hand was clever--if unrefined."

"And yet you're still here. In fact, you could have left months ago."

"Oh, but," Loki murmured as he ran his fingertips down Stephen's chest, "I was quite enjoying myself."

This was not the turn Stephen had expected, but instead of thinking about how he should get Loki off Earth, his mind went to how long it had been since the last time he'd gotten laid. He didn't trust Loki, but then again, he hadn't entirely trusted the cat either and he let it sleep right by his head. And standing there, nose to nose, Loki was every bit as magnificent as his feline form had been. 

"I'd really love to see what else you can do with those hands."

But before Stephen could answer, he was meeting Loki in a hard kiss, wondering if it were possible--or even worth it--to force him back into his feline shape.


End file.
